LET’S BE THANKFUL           

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, let’s take a moment to be thankful for our good luck.

With all of the stress in our lives right now, we need to take a deep breath and think about how lucky we are to live in the United States of America.

Yes, every one of us has problems and irritants and concerns about the future.  But if you take a few minutes to watch some or all of “The American Revolution,” the new documentary by Ken Burns and his colleagues, you’ll grasp just how grateful we should be to the Americans who fought and died during our revolution so we can live in the democratic republic we cherish.

The documentary presents the revolution in a whole new way.  As historian Maya Jasanoff comments, most of us have images of “men in wigs signing documents” in Philadelphia, but the reality is very different.  “We paper over the violence of the American revolution,” she notes, doing “a disservice to history and the people who lived through it.”  The reality is that “the United States came out of violence.”

I was startled to see this level of violence, depicted in countless scenes by talented artists.  Those loyal to the Brits, the “Loyalists,” fought hard to maintain their connection to the King.  The “Patriots,” fighting for independence from Britain, courageously and determinedly opposed the Loyalists.  Huge numbers of both Patriots and Loyalists were killed or wounded in combat, in brutal battles I don’t remember hearing about when my U.S. history classes “papered over” them.

The documentary highlights the role of women that is often forgotten to history.  On the battlefield, they worked to feed and clothe the armies.  At home, they ran businesses and farms.  And women like Abigail Adams recorded for history what they observed.

The series also reveals George Washington as a real human being, a brilliant general but one replete with flaws, making mistake after mistake as he led the Continental Army and the Patriots during eight bloody years.  His success at the end was hard-won.

Also honestly portrayed is the shameful treatment of the Native Americans whose land was torn from them, over and over.  Even those who fought with the Patriots were treated harshly.

Shameful too was the treatment of Black Americans.  Many sided with the Loyalists, believing the Brits’ assurances that they would be freed if the Brits won the war.  Others fought bravely with the Patriots.  But when the war was over, only some Black Americans gained their freedom. 

As the documentary points out, our revolution inspired people throughout the world to seek independence.  We were the first country to be ruled by “the people” instead of a monarch or a tyrant.  Our Declaration of Independence and its opening words, “We the People,” spurred others to replicate what we began.

Despite all of the violence and hardships Americans suffered during the revolution, when it ended they felt hope and confidence in the future.  In a country filled with diverse people, we were able to cohere around a set of purposes and ideas for one “common cause.”

Today, I’m hopeful that our currently polarized population will cohere again around one common cause, and we will return to the aspirational ideals of our revolution: The ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence—not merely the goal of independence but the goals of equality and liberty as well.  

Luckily for us, these ideals were later honored in our Constitution and its amendments. 

Thanksgiving Day reminds us all just how lucky we are.